Jarhead In Red

Wouldn't the firing squad be preferable to this??

Great subject. The whole discussion on performance, and how development, raw talent, discipline, confidence, execution all contribute is quite interesting. The service academies are able to compete with teams who, on paper, are quite a bit more talented, including size and speed. But, they are able to compensate somewhat for these shortcomings by executing cleanly for 4 quarters, playing with a consistent intensity, and using schemes that play to their strengths, etc. Boise State seems to do a good job with lower ranked recruits, and have been able to defeat more talented teams over the past several years. We know these things matter, but it's hard to try and quantify exactly how mental toughness, consistency of execution, and high level effort equates to drives, points, and Defense.........some coaches seem to have it figured out more than others, and seem to squeeze every ounce of potential out of their players, but if someone could solve that equation to a T, then they would be very, very rich...

Good point. As hard as it is to suffer through, I am glad Frost isn't burning shirts like crazy in order to maximize results now. Some of these guys will be much better after using this year to develop. Wandale was ready right away to compete, and be effective vs D1 talent, so getting him on the field makes sense. A lot of the OL and DL recruits need that 1st year to redshirt, add mass and settle in to all the moving parts in the Offense. They might be a small upgrade now, but the extra off season could be huge for them in development. It would seem to me that the toughest thing would be to justify it to AM. That would be a challenging to sit down with Adrian and say: "I know you are getting killed back there, you are running for your life, and aren't able to be effective, but I'm keeping the redshirt on all these OL"......I know Adrian gets it, but man he is going through quite a bit in his Soph year to ensure longer term success of the program. It's a good thing he isn't a "all me" guy........

I think there is a lot of truth to this point. I think it becomes apparent when you re-watch the games, or are able to get overhead shots of the Opposing Defensive alignment. The opposing Defense takes a lot of chances, and the Safeties will even vacate the middle of the field to take away short to medium threats at times, gambling that we won't be able to make them pay.....And, when you can rush us, and get pressure with, 3 guys, or 4 tops, there are limited open spaces to exploit in 3 seconds before our QB gets drilled......

I agree with your assertion, in giving Frost the benefit of the doubt. There must be a reason he isn't running those specific plays. But, man, we have to come up with some strategic answer to counter the better Defensive lines, and when teams blitz. Otherwise, with a leaky OL, it's just a matter of time before your entire QB roster gets injured. I know there has to be some hot reads, or designed quick outlets in the structure of the Offense, but it is puzzling as to why we don't utilize them....

I say it DOES have something to do with who you beat, and it also DOES have something to do with how it was accomplished. They are not mutually exclusive. However, I never intended to hijack this thread with endless discussion about celebrations, so how about this. I was completely wrong , I never should have said a word about any of it, and we celebrate over the same things when we are 10-1 or whether we are 4-8.........now maybe we can put this to rest and move on to more relevant discussions about the 8-4 thread.

Exactly. We celebrate differently based on the opponent and our expectations of winning. Our expectations have changed in our current situation. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying we should never celebrate, or saying we were wrong for doing it for NW. My only point is that how we celebrate is a reflection on who we expect to beat. In 5 years when we are beating NW like a rented drum every year, we won't celebrate so much when we win 13 to 10 on a last second field goal. It's just a minor observation, and not really that important......

It's just an opinion. I've given my reasoning, and some examples, to support my opinion. What have you provided to suppport your opinion, other than "you're wrong"? Explain why, after beating Colorado in 1994, that the players were celebrating wildly in the lockerroom and the fans tore down the goalposts, but they did neither of those things after beating Iowa State. I submit it was because the players and fans EXPECTED to beat Iowa State without a shadow of a doubt, but they EXPECTED Colorado to be a much tougher game, and a bigger accomplishment if they won. Whats your explanation?

And, I'm saying that the celebrations are great, and there is nothing wrong with it at all, but the particulars of what triggers those celebrations are a reflection of where we are as a program, that's it. That's all I'm saying. The players celebrated wildly and the fans pulled down the goalposts when we beat Colorado in 1994, but they didn't react the same way after beating Kansas in the same year. If you don't agree there is any correlation between celebration and expectations that's fine, we can just disagree and move on.

And you continue to miss the point of what I'm trying to say....and want to squabble while ignoring additional details I have given in other posts......

I don't have a problem with them celebrating, I think it's great. But, you have some of the iconic coaches telling players not to wildly celebrate when they score a TD, because they should "act like you've been there before", meaning that it wasn't a surprise and was EXPECTED. In this sense, I submit celebrations are related to expectations, so we will just have to disagree.

Not "Complaining" at all, just making a point about expectations changing, for us and the players, and how it plays out with celebrations.. If you don't think clearing the benches in celebration has anything to do with expectations, that's fine. We can just disagree and leave it at that.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with celebrating ANY win, and this was a good one, especially considering what the team has been through lately, and how NW has given us trouble recently. I was just trying to illustrate how far even the teams expectations have changed from those power teams of old. Back then, the team would celebrate wildly over beating Oklahoma, and occasionally some other conference foes, and now it's happening when we beat a 1-3 NW team. The main point was that we are starting from scratch, and standards and expectations HAVE changed at this point in time....and, like you mention, there's a long way to go..

Everyone wants to get back to 90s level of success, but it's going to be a painful process. In the last few years, we have been beaten by NIU, Troy and Purdue at home, have finished 4-8 in back to back seasons, and have 9-9 home record since 2017, and haven't been competitive in the Big10 West. We need to realize that we are starting from ground zero again. We haven't even been able to play more than 2 or 3 quarters of football for several years. The team celebrated the NW win like they just beat Clemson, so it tells us where our mindset is at this point in time. We need to learn how to play 4 quarters and win, and make those two things a habit as much as possible before we can move on to loftier goals. It sucks, and I sure don't want to wait much longer, and keep losing, but we are starting from scratch in a lot of ways.

Very true. I can speak from experience, just having went through the recruiting process with my daughter for volleyball.

That's asking a lot to have me use complex words like that. After all, I am just an old Jarhead......

Ya, it sure would be nice to start fast on the road. The real enigma is our performance in the 3rd quarter. We relinquish hard fought leads too often in the drives right after halftime. If we can eliminate poor 2nd half starts, we might be able to pull away from some of these opponents instead of letting them take the momentum from us early in the 2nd half...

I think it's a fact. If you watch our OL, they lack good feet in pass pro, and we are playing an OT who is weak blocking the edges for a reason. There isn't really anyone else better to play instead. We just don't have a lot of talent that is ready to see the field.There are a few guys from the last 2 recruiting classes (Benhart, Banks, etc.) who are more athletic, and they should be an upgrade next year even though they are young. But, it will take Frost at least another class to fill in the 2 deep with OL who can play without a big dropoff. It sucks to wait, but there really isn't a quick fix for the OL situation. IMO, AM has additional issues apart from what is being caused by the OL, but it will make it much easier for him to function when he has a little more time to throw....

I'm not sure how Fleck will function then. It's kind of hard to row a boat on frozen water isn't it?

So, by the 2nd play of the game he's tired?? If this is accurate, Jurgens is either poorly conditioned, or if he is tired by the 1st drive then he must play the entire game tired........

I don't know the exact numbers, but I thought we did pretty well on Defense vs Northwestern in the TFL category. We were able to blow up several plays at, and behind, the LOS, forcing punts on NW drives containing favorable down & distance situations. If we can continue that vs Minny, it will increase our odds of getting them off the field, and give our Offense more opportunities.

Very true, Toe. Our OL needs more game experience. I know you already realize this, but some of it is also a talent deficiency. We are having mountains of trouble getting movement at the LOS on inside runs vs decent DLs. And, many of our OL just don't move their feet very well, especially in pass pro. We have Farniok at tackle, and he admits publicly that blocking the edge is "not his strength", and we are so depleted at center we had to throw Jurgens in as a starter for game 1 when he hadn't even practiced much due to injury, and he is still having 11 high snaps in game 6. I think Benhart, Banks, etc have more raw talent than most Offensive lineman who are playing now, but Frost is playing the long game by sitting them and letting them develop a year before hitting the field. As a result, when they start next year, they will also be in the "young" category and will need time to gel with the other O linemen. However, I think these young O linemen will be a noticeable upgrade over our current O line, after a few games in 2020, even though they are young.....sometimes there is no substitute for length and good feet.

No kidding. Maybe we should just run a middle screen EVERY PLAY......If the DL is going to be unblocked, there might as well be a little structure to it.......

I would agree we are trending forward. We still have plenty of warts to get rid of, and some things have been more of a struggle than anticipated. It may not be a huge leap, but our record being improved to 4-2 and finding a way to win a couple of close games leads me to believe the trend is upward, at least a little bit.

True, that is quite the affirmative statement. It's also entirely possible that I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about....